-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- When looking at the world 's lowest unemployment rates , one of the first things you might notice is that many of the countries are in Southeast Asia .

Thailand , Singapore , Malaysia and Vietnam all have unemployment rates at or below 3 % , ranking them in the top six overall , according to tradingeconomics.com .

`` One reason why the unemployment rates in those countries are low is because they 're starting to get a lot of investment that used to go to China and would have gone to China , '' said George T. Haley , a professor of marketing and international business at the University of New Haven and co-author of `` New Asian Emperors : The Business Strategies of the Overseas Chinese . ''

Haley said high wage inflation in China has prompted companies to start outsourcing to other countries instead . But investing in Southeast Asia is far from a new thing in the corporate world .

`` The U.S. , in its policies back during the Vietnam War , encouraged and gave actual subsidies to companies that would source from Southeast Asia because they wanted to use the investment to combat the spread of communism , '' Haley said . `` And over time , it just became a good place to invest . You had relatively low cost of labor ... you had investment support from the U.S. government , and you had the growing economy , which just fed on itself . ''

Speaking of the U.S. , its unemployment rate is 9.2 % , which ranks it close to the bottom among the countries on our table of 67 countries .

While business is definitely booming in Southeast Asia , take its unemployment numbers with a grain of salt . Many countries define unemployment differently , so it 's sometimes difficult to accurately compare rates from different regions .

It 's also important to note that the table above shows only unemployment rates that have been released since December 2010 . Many countries are not on this list because they have n't released their rates in years , if at all .

So while the table shows that Angola and South Africa are last on the list at 25 % , they are likely far from the world 's worst . The latest CIA World Factbook has estimated unemployment rates for most of these missing countries , and eight of them are above 50 % . Zimbabwe might have a jobless rate as high as 95 % .

Other notable countries on the table :

*** America 's unemployment rate is well behind its nearest neighbors , Mexico -LRB- 5.2 % -RRB- and Canada -LRB- 7.4 % -RRB- .

*** One of the roots of the so-called Arab Spring has been the lack of jobs , especially for young people in the Mideast and North Africa .

Tunisia , the first government to fall , had an unemployment rate of 13 % one month before its revolution .

Egypt 's rate was just under 12 % in March . Morocco , another country in North Africa experiencing unrest , reported a rate of 9.1 % . *** Some of the highest rates on the list come from three countries that have recently received bailouts from the European Union .

Ireland and Greece are both above 14 % , while Portugal is just a few points behind at 12.4 % .

But it 's Spain , at 21.3 % , that has the highest unemployment rate in the EU .

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Jobs appear to be plentiful in many Southeast Asian countries

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One of the reasons , an expert says , is that China -- not just the West -- is outsourcing there

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The United States ' jobless rate is higher than the rates in Canada and Mexico